Stephanie
5-Day Art Challenge
Intro
One complaint I've had a lot is that in junior year I don't have enough time to do art, but last week I had the opportunity to put that to the test. Not only was it a very busy week, making it the perfect week for an experiment like this (Saturday was the PSAT, and on Sunday I was presenting my research at the MIT PRIMES October Conference), but on Friday was an art competition that I wanted to submit the piece to, giving it a real and tangible deadline.
I had an idea for a piece: I wanted to integrate shoes, road signs, a cityscape, an diagram, and I wanted to try to ink the drawing in black and white, since I was unfamiliar with the medium.
Here's the quick mockup I made when I first came up with the idea:
So, how did it go?
Monday
Monday was a holiday, so there was no school! I did a math practice olympiad, then a practice USACO, then a practice AMC. Then it was time to work on art! On Monday, I mainly gathered reference photos and laid out how I wanted my piece to look like, then made a quick sketch as a base.
My reference photos I collected:
And then the mockup I made:
I wanted the Long Short-Term Memory architecture diagrams to be more visible though, so I made another mockup, and planned to blend the two together for my actual drawing:
Then, I made a sketch in pencil of how I wanted to lay everything out:
And finally I started the inking process itself. I was super nervous since it was my first time doing any sort of detailed inking work, and I was using micron pens from elementary school, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out! My hand began to hurt after about two hours, so I decided to stop for the day. Here's what it looked like at the end of Monday:
Tuesday
I woke up early and worked on inking the piece for 30 minutes, until I had to catch my school bus.
After school, I held the first LexMACS meeting with my co-captain, and between school homework, AMC preparation, and a Science Olympiad Captains meeting, but I still managed to squeeze in two hours of art, broken up into two blocks of one hour.
Progress after block one:
I finally finished the shoe itself! Now it was time to do the road signs. The road signs here are a little shaky in quality, but soon enough I found a solution...
Progress after block two:
Now THESE look better! I began to use a ruler more rigorously, and went back and redid some of the older ones to look better. Day two complete, and the shoe and road signs are finished! Next up, the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture!
Wednesday
Wednesday after school, I had a math team tryout, and then my weekly MIT PRIMES meeting, as well as a practice math olympiad. I fit in about two hours of art once again, once again broken up into two blocks. Here's what the piece looked like at the end of the day:
LSTM architecture done! I kept the principles and all the important and relevant parts of the LSTM architecture, but changed a few stylistic choices to make it blend better with the art piece. It provides a nice contrast from the detailed show and creates a sort of gradient fading to the background, as to not overwhelm the viewer. Next up is the actual background 👀!
Thursday
On Thursday I came home directly from school, then spent another three hours on the piece, broken up into two time blocks.
Progress after block one:
Block one was mainly spent resketching the background, since I disliked how the mockup background looked.
Progress after block two:
Block two was spent inking the actual background, and I went for more of a minimalist style to keep the focus on the foreground. I really like how the black and white contrast, though, and create a 3-D vibe.
Friday
Friday was mainly spent submitting and writing explanations for my art pieces to the art competition, as well as hosting an LHS Scioly Tryout Info Session and practicing for the PSAT tomorrow. I was satisfied with my product on Thursday, and didn't want to overdo it, or as people say, 画蛇添足.
Final Result:
Total Time Spent: 10 Hours
Conclusion
So it is possible to fit in art with my workload! Of course, it's highly not recommended to cram an art piece in one week like what I did—not only did my hand hurt after spending 2+ hours each day on the art, but spending every spare moment on an art piece will also cause you to get burnt out as you get to the end. It was good that I powered through on Thursday and finished the piece, because by Friday I felt slightly burnt out and less enthusiastic. So DON'T CRAM!!! Spread your time with art out, as I will do in the future. Despite that, this challenge was a success! I beat my challenge of trying to draw an art piece I was happy with and that incorporated all the elements I wanted to add in less than 5 days, and did it in 4 days!
I guess what my Health teacher said is true: it's not that you don't have enough time, it's that you're not prioritizing things you want to do. By prioritizing art in my spare time for this week, I was able to accomplish this challenge.